Wisdom We Didn't Know We Had

“And Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants.” (1Ki 3:15 AV)

 The context here is extremely important.  Solomon has just ascended to the throne following the passing of David, his father.  He had dealt with the leftover enemies of his father and found himself at the high place of Gibeon.  There, he offered a thousand burnt offerings unto the LORD.  Gibeon was the highest of the high places.  Solomon had erected a tabernacle there so the people could worship.  This was in addition to the original tabernacle located in Jerusalem which housed the ark and all the furniture passed down from Moses.  It was at Gibeon that God granted Solomon’s gift of wisdom.  Rather than asking for wealth, long life, or the defeat of all his enemies, Solomon showed great wisdom is asking for wisdom.  What is striking in this passage is the very first act of Solomon after the LORD granted him that wisdom.  His first act as king was to return to Jerusalem to the site of the ark and brazen altar for the purpose of sacrifice and worship.  He left the high place of Gibeon and returned to the legitimate site of true worship.  Yet, Solomon never destroyed the high places he had built.  It didn’t dawn on him the act of wisdom he just exercised was the wisest of all and he needed to meditate upon that act as important for him and Israel.  His very first wise act was to acknowledge the superiority of the tabernacle in Jerusalem and the utter stumbling block the high places were going to be.

Wisdom can often be instinctual.  We don’t know why we chose to do something until afterward.  We see the wisdom of the choice and realize it was more than luck or mere chance.  There was something we saw but didn’t see.  Something outside ourselves told us a better choice was there.  Sometimes these things are simple.  However, sometimes these things are major.  How many times have we chosen an alternate route to our destination than we would normally take only to find out our regular route had a sudden problem.  I live in a large city.  My wife works about ten miles away from home.  There are more ways to get there and back then one can possibly compute.  The normal way to get there and back would be to use the expressway.  Going the side roads, with so many variations are often a choice.  Especially when I pick her up at the end of the day.  Many times, I have avoided the expressway to take the side roads.  There are times I avoid the major thoroughfares for less-traveled paths only to find out there were problems on those major roads we didn’t know about until later.  The thing about wisdom is the importance of flowing up.  What I mean is, after a choice is made that may seem a bit out of a pattern, it is good to reflect on that choice to discern whether it should be a choice that results in a permanent life change.

Like Solomon, we exercise wisdom we didn’t know we had all the time.  The problem is, we don’t take the time to meditate on what we just chose and why.  Had Solomon stopped for a moment and asked himself why he didn’t continue his sacrifices in Gibeon and instead, went to Jerusalem, he would have come to the conclusion the high places were not needed and would eventually be a problem.  It would have been more natural for him to offer more burnt offerings at Gibeon.  It was there where the LORD met Solomon after he offered a thousand burnt offerings.  Pragmatically, it would seem if the LORD blessed him at Gibeon, it should have been Gibeon as the place he should worship.  But wise instinct told him to return to the rightful place of worship.  His failure was a lack of meditation on the change of pattern so that he could learn from his own wisdom.  We all do this.  We all have this flaw.  We have more wisdom than we realize.  What we don’t do is learn the motive or logic behind the choices we make and thus waste a teachable moment that could result in a permanent life change.